1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system and program for diagnosing a computer in a network system and, in particular, gathering network and application performance data to use in diagnosing the computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many businesses that sell computer related services and products transact with customers over the Internet, i.e., World Wide Web, or Intranet. One problem with transacting business over the Internet is the delays customers experience to execute transactions to access information. Lengthy delays may frustrate customers and cause them to associate access delays and problems with the business with which they are transacting, even if the business is not at fault for the delays. Many computer related businesses provide technical support to help customers diagnose their computer problems. Providing support technicians to assist customers with computer problems can be a very expensive service because of the labor intensive nature of the technical support function. One of the major determining factors in the effectiveness of live technical support is the ability of the technician to adequately diagnose the problem in a timely manner. Diagnosing problems may depend to some extent on the customer, whose lack of knowledge may hinder the diagnostic process. Any factors that hinder and delay the ability of the technician to diagnoses the problem will increase the businesses technical support costs and further frustrate the customer.
When a technician speaks with a customer over the phone to diagnose the computer problem, the technician may request the customer to perform certain tasks on the computer to assist with the diagnosis. Involving the customer to perform the diagnosis could complicate and delay the diagnostic process if the customer has limited technical knowledge of the computer and needs significant time to perform the requested operations. When information is obtained verbally from a customer, the accuracy of the information is xe2x80x9conly as good asxe2x80x9d the technical knowledge of the end-user. Moreover, the customer may not perform the operations correctly or lack the technical knowledge to execute the operations requested by the technician. Still further on-line assistance where the customer self-diagnoses problems can also lead to frustration if the customers do not perform the self-diagnosis properly and fix the problem. All these factors can significantly lengthen the diagnostic process, increase the cost of the diagnostic process, increase the inaccuracy of diagnosis, and further erode customer confidence.
For these reasons, there is a need in the art to provide improved systems for diagnosing computer related problems when providing technical support.
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, preferred embodiments disclose a method, system, and program for diagnosing a computer over a network. A program is provided that executes on the computer. The program causes the computer to download at least one object from a server over the network. Performance data is determined with respect to downloading the object from the server to the computer over the network in order to diagnose performance problems with the computer. The determined performance data is then transmitted to a diagnostic system over the network.
In further embodiments, the process of determining the performance data comprises determining a sever and network transmission time to download the object from the server and a display time to execute the object within the computer and display content of the object at the computer.
In still further embodiments, the diagnostic system displays the performance data transmitted from the computer being diagnosed and average performance data determined from a database of previously gathered performance data to provide information to diagnose the computer.
Preferred embodiments provide a program to monitor network transmissions at a computer, such as a customer""s computer, for the purpose of gathering performance data. The program or applet executing in the customer computer transmits the gathered performance data to a diagnostic system. In preferred embodiments, the applet will further analyze the data and perform calculations on the data, such that the data transmitted to the diagnostic system is a complete report. Previously, reliance on the customer to perform diagnostic actions would result in significant delays to determine the source of the problem because the customer often lacks the computer technical knowledge to quickly perform the requested diagnostic action or may incorrectly execute the operation, which would require the technician to determine that customer mistakes occurred and request the customer to again perform the diagnostic operation. Further, reliance on customers to diagnose the system may result in inaccuracy of the findings.
Once the performance data is gathered, it can be immediately presented to both the customer on a customer display and a technician operating the diagnostic system from the database. In this way, diagnostic information is automatically gathered and provided to the technician without having to rely on the technical acumen of the customer. The technician would then use the diagnostic information to determine the source of the problem the customer is experiencing. Further, preferred embodiments would allow the customer to execute the applet program on the computer to self-diagnose of the problem without the assistance of a support technician. The performance data would still be uploaded to the help desk to store in the database for future use. An Internet web site may provide solutions to known problems for the customer to attempt after self-diagnosing the problem.